The Trial of German Major War Criminals

Sitting at Nuremberg, Germany
9th August to 21st August 1946

Two Hundred and Fifth Day:
Friday, 16th August, 1946(Part 6 of 10)

[MR. DODD continues his cross examination of Walther Emanuel Funk]

[Page 233]

Q. I do not know how long you are going on with this, but as
far as I am concerned, you have given me all the information
I want about the matter. Really, Mr. President, I do not
think this is being very helpful to the Tribunal. This last
sort of statement is not in response to any questions I put
to him. I just want to ask one or two more questions before
lunch. Did you ever have any trouble with Oswald Pohl, the
Finance Minister, the man who says that he talked this
matter over with you, even to the point of the disgusting
fact that the clothing came from dead Jews? Did you have any
trouble with him in your life - any personal difficulty?

A. As far as I remember, I only talked with Pohl once and
perhaps he visited me twice.

Q. The answer is no, is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. Now, of course, you have seen this affidavit. There he
goes into very great detail about when he saw you, where he
saw you, who else was present, even the number of people who
were at your little lunch in the dining-room there. Do you
know of any reason why he should fabricate testimony like
this against you? Should it help the Tribunal or should it
help yourself? Why should he lie about you in this terrible
way? Can you give any suggestion, any motive, any cause?

A. In my opinion the motive is purely psychological, because
people who are in the terrible situation that Pohl is in,
who are indicted for the murder of millions, usually attempt
to incriminate others. We know that.

[Page 234]

Q. May I interrupt you .... You mean in the same position
that you find yourself in?

A. No, I do not regard myself as a murderer of millions.

Q. Well, I do not care to argue about that with you, I
merely wanted to give you an opportunity to state to the
Tribunal any reason that you might have - and I think you
have. And then only one other thing. I want to ask you this
- and there is no doubt in our minds. Although there were
millions - there must have been millions of valuables taken
from the people who were killed in the concentration camps
and looted through your Economic Ministry, assisted by your
Reichsbank - do you want us to understand you knew nothing
about that? Can you answer it briefly, yes or no? Am I right
in so stating it - you knew nothing about it?

A. I have never asserted that I knew nothing about it. I
have always said that I knew that confiscated valuables were
deposited in the Reichsbank by the SS and that foreign
exchange, gold and other foreign securities and banknotes
were converted by the Reichsbank. But that I knew nothing -

Q. Wait a minute, please. I do not think you misunderstood
my question. I was asking you about the textiles only at the
beginning and I think that you have told this Tribunal that
you did not know about the textiles. You did not know about
the textile transaction at all, did you?

A. No, I did not know that textiles from the concentration
camps were used to this extent

Q. That is all I want you to say, that is your answer.

Now, thousands of other articles of a personal nature, from
wrist watches and fountain pens to ladies' bags, all kinds
of jewellery and precious stones, an enormous part of these
apparently, according to the testimony, was flowing through
your Economic Ministry with the assistance of the
Reichsbank, and you want the Tribunal to understand that you
had very little knowledge, if any, of all those
transactions?

A. I knew nothing about those things, nothing at all.

Q. And gold teeth, or gold dentures, were in the vaults of
your bank, but you did not know anything about that strange
deposit; you knew nothing about that either? So you did not
know anything about all these great sums of foreign currency
actually going through your Reichsbank and deposited there,
did you?

A. I knew nothing about the huge amounts which are being
mentioned here. I knew only that foreign currency was being
deposited.

Q. Are you sure you were in the Reichsbank in those days?

A. Yes.

MR. DODD: I have no further questions.

THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.

(A recess was taken until 1400 hours.)

WALTER FUNK - Resumed

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, have you any questions you want
to put?

DR. SAUTER: No.

BY MR. BIDDLE:

Q. Defendant, I am not quite clear about your conversation
with Himmler. Was this the first time that a deposit of this
sort had been opened by the SS?

A. Yes.

Q. You have never discussed this with any SS personalities
before?

A. No, with no one.

Q. And of course it was not Himmler's business to see that
gold and notes were brought into the bank under the German
law, was it?

[Page 235]

A. Himmler told me that large quantities of valuables had
been confiscated by the SS and they included valuables which
interested the Reichsbank, such as gold, foreign currency,
etc.

Q. I did not ask you that. Will you listen now? Was it any
of Himmler's business or duties to see that gold and notes
were turned in to the bank? That did not come under his
jurisdiction, did it?

A. Yes, if these things, for example, had been taken from
the inmates of concentration camps, he would have to -

Q. That is exactly what I meant. So that you knew or
suspected, since Himmler was dealing with you, that the gold
and the notes had come from concentration camps which were
under Himmler. Was not that the reason that you supposed
that this material had come from camps? It was obvious, was
it not?

A. Not only from concentration camps. Himmler was also in
charge of the customs police and the SS also acted as police
in the occupied territories. It did not necessarily follow
that the material came from concentration camps alone, but -

Q. No, but you suspected it did come from the concentration
camps when Himmler talked to you, did you not

A. Yes.

Q. Did you ask him where it came from?

A. No, I did not.

Q. He said these gold and notes were part of other property;
there was other property, too?

A. No, he said they were confiscated valuables. The
interview was very brief and took place in Lammers's field
headquarters, as I recall it, when I met him there. It was a
very short conversation. He told me: "We have confiscated a
large amount of valuables, especially in the East, and we
would like to deposit them m the Reichsbank." May I add
something? Then when these things came to the bank, Puhl
and, as I recall, Wilhelm were present at a conversation,
and they said that I should ask Himmler whether these things
which had been sent in by the SS to their deposit - strictly
speaking we were not allowed to touch their deposit -
whether they could be used by the Reichsbank. I did ask him
and he said yes.

Q. Well, now, let us see. The "East" meant the Government
General, did it not?

A. At that time vast Eastern territories were occupied.

Q. But he did not mean Germany; he meant occupied
territories, did he not?

A. He spoke of "the East." Well, I had to suppose he did.

Q. You had no idea what he meant when he said "the East," I
suppose?

A. No. I thought the occupied territories in the East. That
is what I understood. The occupied Eastern territories.

Q. This was not one of your regular deposits; I think it
would be appropriate to say that, was it? It was not one of
your regular deposits, was it? It was unusual?

A. Certainly.

Q. You did not ask him any questions about it at all?

A. No, I did not speak with him any more than I have said
here. Last night I racked my brains to reconstruct
everything, but I cannot remember anything beyond what I
have said.

Q. You were not curious about this deposit at all? You were
not curious about it? It did not interest you?

A. No. Once or twice I talked to Puhl - once Wilhelm was
there too - quite briefly.

MR. BIDDLE: Thank you; that is all.

THE PRESIDENT: The defendant may return to the dock.

[Page 236]

DR. STAHMER (for the defendant Goering): Mr. President, this
morning you asked for information, whether the questions for
which I named the witness were dealt with previously. I have
ascertained that on the session of 8th March, 1946, the
witness Milch was asked by me about two letters and my
answers to them. One was from Obergruppenfuehrer Wolff,
dated May, 1942. This is in the transcript, in the English
transcript on Page 5578.

Then in cross-examination this question was brought up again
by Mr. Justice Jackson; it is on Page 5623 of the English
transcript. Then General Rudenko, in cross-examination of
the same witness Milch, produced another letter of Himmler -
to Milch, I believe - of November, 1942. This is in the
English transcript on Page 5674.

Up to now I have not been able to find anything more about
it in the short time which was available. I do not recall
having asked Goering about it. I do not think I did so, for
this is quite a small point. I considered it cleared up
sufficiently by the testimony of Milch. Milch was examined
before Goering. In my opinion, this deals with other events.
The question of making sea-water drinkable and the means to
combat typhus were not discussed at all. Nor do I think that
freezing experiments were mentioned, so that I think these
are other subjects than the ones discussed by Milch.

THE PRESIDENT: Do you mean that the defendant Goering did
not discuss the subject of experiments on inmates of
concentration camps at all? What you refer to are the
subjects discussed by General Milch.

DR. STAHMER: Yes. As far as I recall the matter now .... I
was not able to investigate it as to Goering .... As far as
I recall, I asked only Milch about the subject .... Then in
the examination of Goering, which took place later, I did
not come back to it because I assumed that this question had
been cleared up by Milch. But I should like to examine the
transcript carefully. This noon I was not able to do so
owing to the limited time.

In this connection I should like to point out one more
thing. Mr. President, I made a written application
concerning the witness Schreiber, whose statement was
referred to by the Russian prosecution a few days ago,
should he be brought here as a witness. If the witness
Schreiber is really to be produced, I ask to be permitted to
examine Goering after the examination of the witness
Schreiber so that it will not be necessary to recall him to
the witness stand a third time.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will consider that, too. General
Rudenko, can you inform the Tribunal whether Dr. Schreiber
is going to be brought here, whether you are going to make
use of the affidavit and have him brought here, or not?

GENERAL RUDENKO: We have taken all necessary measures in
order to bring the witness Schreiber here to this courtroom,
but as yet we have no information as to whether the witness
will be brought before the case of the organizations is
closed. He is in a prisoner-of-war camp near Moscow. I
presume that in the course of today or tomorrow we will be
in a position to inform the Tribunal more exactly.

THE PRESIDENT: Now, Sir David, have you been able to find
out whether the defendant Goering did give any evidence upon
this topic?

SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: My staff are on that matter at the
moment. They have not quite completed checking the
transcript. I hope to be able to inform your Lordship very
shortly.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well. The Tribunal will deal with the
question of documents on behalf of the organizations, and I
think that Dr. Servatius is going to deal with it first.

[Page 237]

DR. SERVATIUS (Counsel for the Leadership Corp of the Nazi
Party): Mr. President, first I shall present the contents of
the document book, then I shall comment on the affidavits. I
have already introduced the documents as such, following the
taking of evidence; and the exhibit numbers were agreed on
with the General Secretary.

On Page 1 is Document No. 10. It deals with statistics of
the Party. It is an excerpt from an issue of Der
Hoheitstrager. Its significance is that it indicates how
many people are affected by the present proceedings. If you
will look at Page 1 for the year 1935 the number of
officials for Block, Zelle, Ortsgruppen, Kreise and Gaue is
given as approximately 600,000.

If you will look at Page 2, in the lower half of the page,
the above figure is increased by the leadership of the
organizations for the year 1935. In order to give the
figures, there are the Frauenschaft and Frauenwerk (women's
organizations), about 50,000; the students' associations,
1,600; the DAF (Labour Front) and so forth, 800,000; the
Office of Public Welfare and NSV (Nazi Welfare), 300,000 - I
am giving round figures - and the Reich Food Office about
100,000; the Welfare Office for War Victims, 84,000. Those
special offices amount altogether to 1,475,000. If the
600,000 previously mentioned are added, one reaches a figure
of over 2,000,000.

THE PRESIDENT: Are these figures figures of persons who were
political leaders within the definition?

DR. SERVATIUS: Yes, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, either the Gauleiter or the Kreisleiter
-

DR. SERVATIUS: May I explain it briefly? One must make the
basic distinction between the real political leaders who
directed the political machinery, from the Gauleiter down to
the Blockleiter, and apart from them, the large number of
people who worked in the Labour Front, NSF (Nazi Welfare),
and such other organizations, who were also called
"political leaders." This was clearly shown when the witness
Hupfauer was examined here; he said that in his
organization, which had 20,000,000 members, the leadership
was carried out by "political leaders."

Later, in my closing speech, I will explain exactly what
this means, but to begin with they are all included in the
term "Corps of Political Leaders." It is evident that the
Indictment really meant only those who actually directed
political offices, from the Gau to the Block; but they are
all included in the term. That is why I have given these
figures to clear up the matter.

THE PRESIDENT: What have we got to do with anybody except
those from Gauleiter to Blockleiter? The rest of them are
rank and file so far as the Tribunal is concerned.

DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, they are, to begin with,
included in the term "Corps of Political Leaders," which the
Indictment did not limit - it should have done so at the
time. It is of significance because from these
organizations, in the technical staffs of these political
offices

THE PRESIDENT: You mean that the Indictment does not specify
"Gauleiter down to Blockleiter," it says imply the "Corps of
Political Leaders"?

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